Mitosis

There are two main ways of cell reproduction which are very different from each other. Mitosis uses 5 different phases to make an exact copy of the cell. For example if you tear a muscle then your brains tells the cells to start reproducing so the tear will heal. I'm sure you don't want bone cells where the muscle needs fixed. Meiosis is a completely different thing with having 7 steps instead of 5. Meiosis can only be used in one thing and that is sexual reproduction. Anything living uses this to make more of it. In Meiosis no two things are exactly the same and that is the beauty of it. I will talk about Meiosis in my next blog.

Mitosis is made up of 5 different steps and here is more detail about them.

Interphase
This is the starting phase when the cell is doing its normal job. New DNA is split up so that each chromosome has equal amount of DNA. The two chromosomes are called duplicated or replicated chromosomes and attach in a structure called the centromere. After time the cell gets ready to start Mitosis by putting together much of the things needed to move chromosomes around. Although interphase really isn't a part of Mitosis it is something important to know about.
Prophase
This is the first step in Mitosis and involves the chromosome to become visible. This is done by paired centrioles (centrosomes) moving to opposite ends of the cell. To tell that its no longer interphase the nucleoli disappear and inside the nucleus is grainy like spaghetti. As the centrosomes move apart the mitotic spindle forms. Some of the fibers of the mitotic spindle attach to chromosomes pulling them towards the center of the cell.


Metaphase
In metaphase the centromeres are now in the center of the cell. Many nonattached spindle fibers are visible in metaphase. Some of these fibers reach beyond the metaphase plate and overlap.

Anaphase
Sister chromatids part and become daughter chromosomes that move toward the spindle poles. Each daughter cell has a centromere and a single chromatid that appear to move to opposite poles. Each pole receives the same number and kinds of chromosomes. This cell is called the parent cell.

Telophase 
During this phase daughter cells that have the same chromosomes as the parent cell form as nuclear envelopes and nucleoli reappear. Chromosome will become indistinct chromatin.

In this experiment I had to choose which phase each picture was in out of 36 pictures. The highest # of pictures was Interphase with 20 pictures. Going from highest to lowest the next # of pictures were Prophase with 10 pictures. Next down was Metaphase with 3 pictures. After Metaphase was Anaphase with 2 pictures. Finally with 1 picture was Telophase. I think it was funny that the phases went in order with the last phase as the lowest # of pictures and Interphase with the highest # of pictures.

The questions from the lab are in the link below

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1VkdM64evQlortXHTTNlCBvAcCc9M8rvkUzkyooWDe2E